


A Ride to Niagara 
in 1809 





Glass, F I Z 3 
Book_^C7k_ 



*! 



lina 



A Ride 

to Niagara 

in 1809 



By T. C. 






i^^k? 



3^ 



/ 



■I 



r: 



Two hundred copies reprinted, October, 1915, 
from the Portfolio for July, August, September 
and October, 1810, for George P. Humphrey, 
Rochester, N. Y. 



No. 



Mr. Oldschool, 

Finding myself at Williamsport, in Lycoming county about the 

Lt that t me almost a wilderness, and I was not tempted to go fur her 
l^^a^ than'^e mouth of the river. It is now a very populous 
Tnd well cultivated country, considering the short per.od of its settle 
' ent ind every year lessens the inconveniences attendmg so mter- 
:^ a jaunt T^vellers, who, like myself, ride post through a coun^ 
trv have seldom much accurate information to give: but as I think 
t^e tour wmTarly become more fashionable, because it deserves to 
become so I send you the observations that occurred to me on the 
route Even the designation of stages and the names of taverns, will 
not be wilhout their use to persons in this stat^ who have leisure and 
• -^ ,r. ,M-s;t nn obiect so remarkable as Niagara Falls. At any 
Tth o..::^ notes wiJ. for. a .oWr.b.e register o< the pr.sen, 
s^a'; of the country. I wish we had such, imperfect as >t .s^of^every 
part of the United States. 



A Ride to Niagara 

ITINERARY 

I set out from WilHamsport on Saturday the sixth of 
May, 1809, in the afternoon, and went to (14 miles) 
Reynolds's, a good tavern. Here the tolerable road 
ends. 

15* Sunday 7th, to Higley's at the block house, 
along a villainous road, nearly impassable for a pleasure 
carriage. 

10 To Bloss's at Peters's Camp: a very bad road 
through a very improvable country. Iron ore and 
bituminous coal found within a mile and a half of his 
house : the iron ore not rich, nor the vein of coal thick. 
A miserable habitation, but civil people. 

9 To Jenyns's : a house to bait at only. 

10 To widow Berry's: tolerable accommodation. 
The bottom lands of the Tioga* are almost all of them 
in the incipient stage of improvement. They are as yet 
chiefly settled by half share intruders, who are grad- 
ually becoming tired of their illegal and precarious title. 
The flats are not wide, but the land is very rich. 

8 Monday, may eighth, crossed the Tioga and the 
Canisteo or Canister, to judge Linby's, about a mile over 
the state line : at the state line the road, from being ex- 
ecrable through Pennsylvania, from Reynolds's, (I may 

* The figures at the beginning of the paragraphs denote the num- 
ber of miles from the place mentioned in the preceding, to that in the 
paragraph at which the figure is placed. 

* I wish we had preserved more of the old Indian appellations. 
The head of Tioga was Cutcutticanay. The Indian name of Dela- 
ware was Mackerick Kitton: it is so called in the first purchase deed 
of fifteenth July, 1682. Schuylkill was Manaiunk. In another deed 
of same date, the islands in the Delaware within that purchase, were 
Mactinnictink, Scpassinks, and Onctons. The names of Ncshaniinck 
and Pcmapccka, are preserved. Chester Creek was Mackopanacklian. 

Duck Creek, in Chester County, was Quinquingus. 

The Genesee River is the Cheneseo. The gut called in that coun- 
try Jerundagut is Eutenantoquot. The Indians of that country lay 
the emphasis on the last syllable. 



10 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

indeed say from Williamsport, considering the frequent 
crossings of Lycoming Creek) to the boundary Hne of 
the state, becomes suddenly pleasant and good. I do 
not now recollect how many times a traveller has to 
pass Lycoming Creek, and Trout Run, and the Tioga, 
and the Canister in the last fifty miles ; but there can- 
not be less than between forty and fifty fordings alto- 
gether; I believe the latter number is nearest the truth. 
And yet the greater part of the road passes through or 
in sight of very good land. Between Reynolds's and 
judge Linby's, I met with no hay. 

12 To Irwin's at the painted post : through a good 
country, along a good road, to a tolerable tavern. 

12 To doctor Falkner's, who keeps tavern at Mud 
Creek. He is the president judge of the court of com- 
mon pleas of Steuben county. The judges of common 
pleas in Newyork state receive no salary : they are 
allowed some trifling bench fees, not worth their accept- 
ance, and seldom inquired after. The courts sit three 
times a year. The judges of the supreme court attend 
(singly) to hold circuit or nisi prius court twice a year. 
The court of common pleas lasts about six days : prob- 
ably a lawyer as the president, with a decent salary, 
would abridge this two days, and save the time, the 
trouble, and the expense of the suitors, at least to the 
amount of one-third. The attornies (four at present) 
usually reside at Bath. There are from forty to fifty 
suits brought to a term. 

6 To Bath, to William Spring's tavern. This is the 
county town of Steuljen. It was the scene of the Gen- 
esee speculations so much encouraged by captain Wil- 
liamson. It is situated in a high cold climate ; almost 
surrounded by mountains; on a meagre, barren, silice- 
ous soil. It contains even now, although the first town 
built by and the favourite residence of captain W^il 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 11 

liamson, but thirty houses. Captain Wilhamson's old 
house, a mile before you reach Bath, with eight hundred 
and forty-six acres of land, four hundred of which were 
cleared and improved, and sixty of them meadow, sold 
lately to a Mr. Hopkins for nine thousand dollars. The 
buildings alone cost captain Williamson at least fifteen 
thousiand. Goods are purchased here chiefly -from 
Newyork, which, as a market, is upon the average about 
one-sixteenth cheaper than Philadelphia. The price of 
carriage hither is about the same, viz. two dollars and 
twenty-five cents per hundred weight; but the road to 
and from New York is much the best. I staid here on 
business part of Tuesday, May ninth, and in the after- 
noon went on to Terples's (twenty miles). He is the 
sherifif of the county, and keeps a tolerable tavern. Very 
bad road from Bath hither. 

Wednesday ninth, rain. In the afternoon to Rice's 
(eleven and a half miles) at Snell's town, nicknamed 
Pen Yang, from its being originally settled by Penna- 
mites and Yankees in about equal proportions. This 
is a poor place and a very middling tavern. It is on 
the outlet of the Crooked Lake where there is an ex- 
cellent mill-seat. I heard of limestone about nine miles 
from Terples's near to the bank of the Seneca Lake, 
but I saw not a particle of that stone on the whole road 
from the mouth of Loyalsock till I came here : an ex- 
tent of ninety-four miles. 

Thursday May ii. To^ Powel's at Geneva (fifteen 
miles). About one hundred houses ; a place of much 
trade. A delightful street on the bank of the lake : the 
houses of frame, well painted, clean, cheerful, with a 
full view of this charming lake in front. Geneva is built 
on limestone, wdiich I suspect extends all the way up the 
Seneca Lake to Catharine's Town, if not in a continuous 
stratum, in hills and nodules. Powel's tavern was built 



12 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

by captain Williamson. It might be kept cleaner and 
neater than it is. I guessed it at fifty feet square with- 
inside. I inquired of Powel, if there had been any ap- 
pearance of plaster of paris remarked in his neighbour- 
hood, or in any part of the Genesee country : he said he 
had never heard of any, unless a substance like alabas- 
ter which had been suspected for plaster, about nine 
miles off. Instead, therefore, of going the direct turn- 
pike road to Canandaigua, (pronounced Canadarque) 
sixteen miles, I went the Sulphur- spring road. 

9 To Sterne's tavern : walked to Dickson's mill and 
house, about half a mile oft' on the opposite side of the 
road, and found a well that had been partly dug and 
abandoned, in which I dug out some specimens of good 
genuine gypsum, too decidedly marked to be mistaken. 
I could see none on the surface. 

3^ To Powel's at the Sulphur-springs. This is the 
brother of Powel at Geneva, a civil obliging man. The 
place is dreary, but the house large, though unfin- 
ished. It was intended as a kind of watering place, and 
no doubt the spring would have an excellent effect in 
cutaneous disorders, in diabetes mellitus, and, I think, 
in pthisis. Doctor Beddoes's theory has not been of 
much service as yet in that terrible disorder, but old 
Mr. Watt of Birmingham, whose opinions and observa- 
tions are entitled to very great weight, informed me 
soon after his daughter's death of that disorder, that 
she never took a dose of inflammable, mixed with at- 
mospheric air, without manifest alleviation of the symp- 
toms. From whatever species of idiosyncrasy (whether 
natural or induced by disease) it be, certain it is, that 
the blood in that disorder is too much oxygenated. 
Doctor Rollo's successful practice g-ives well-founded 
hope that these springs would be of great use in dia- 
betes. The establishment is too large for the resort. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 13 

There are two or three sulphur springs hereabout, but 
Powel's is the largest and most saturated. He told me 
that however well corked and secured, the water would 
not bear transportation. I tried it, by well corking and 
waxing a vial full, but on opening it a month afterward, 
its peculiar smell and taste was gone. I gave for a bot- 
tle of London porter (so called) at Powel's five shillings 
York money : probably the people, who would otherwise 
resort here, find the living somewhat too expensive. 
An assessor here informed me that the lands of that 
township were rated one with another in the tax books, 
at twenty-two shillings and six pence, York currency, 
per acre. 

ID To Taylor's at Canandaigua : a good tavern. 
Canadarque consists of one street extending from the 
lake. It contains from ninety to a hundred frame 
houses, generally speaking, neat and elegant in their 
external appearance ; a meeting house and a court 
house. It is indeed a very handsome town. There are 
two potash works here. About eight lawyers, for this 
is the county town of Ontario. The agriculture of the 
neighbourhood is probably improving, for I observed in 
one of the newspapers (there are two published here) 
forty half blooded Merino lambs to be disposed of at 
Palmyra by William Howe Cuyler. The house and lot 
of forty acres in this town formerly owned by Mr. T. 
Morris, sold to the present occupant, Mr. Clarke, a 
tanner, for seven thousand dollars. In the time of Mr. 
Morris it was, in good truth, a hospitable mansion; and 
then, the only house in the place of genteel appearance. 
At present there are twenty as good. 

lo Friday, twelfth, to Eccleston's. 

2 To Hall's ; the more frequented of the two. 

12 To the widow Berry's, about half a mile on this 
side the Genesee river. This is in Hartford. From Can- 



14 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

adarque hither, you pass through Bloomfield and 
Charlestown townships. It is one village all the way 
from Canadarque; at least you are scarcely ever out 
of sight of a house. In Bloomfield I saw two brick 
houses, one brick store, and one brick meeting house. 
My memory does not serve me to recollect any other 
from Williamsport hither, but log and frame buildings. 
In Pennsylvania, on this route, you see log houses; in 
Newyork state, frames. Indeed the county town of 
Williamsport, in Lycoming, contains but two brick 
houses, the house of Mr. M. Ross, and the very excel- 
lent tavern of Mr. Wilson. Judge Hepburn has a brick 
house about a mile off. And yet limestone is to be 
found but two miles and a half distant from Williams- 
port, at the mouth of Loyalsock; and from the outlet 
of the Crooked Lake through Geneva to Lake Erie 
limestone abounds. From Canandaigua hither the 
stone on the road is round siliceous pebble, siliceous 
grit, chert, chert-flint, flint occasionally by itself, and 
sometimes imbedded in limestone, chert intermixed 
with limestone, and here and there limestone, in the 
proportion of perhaps one-fourth of the whole number 
of stones. For a mile before you come to the Genesee 
river, the road is made chiefly of gravel formed of com- 
pact siliceous stones. 

4 Across the Genesee river. Passed the Indian vil- 
lage of Canewagas. This tribe has reserved about two 
miles square on the river. It began to rain, and I was 
compelled to put up for the night at a tolerable tavern 
kept by a major Smith. 

12 Saturday, May thirteenth, to Marvin's; tolerable 
house. Very poor cherty land for five miles from 
Smith's. 

8 To Keys or Kyes at Batavia. Excellent land and 
well settled for the last eighteen miles. The road tol- 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 15 

erably good. Limestone and chert all the way. The 
country is very level, and as well fitted for a Batavian 
as any I know of. 

Batavia contains two taverns, (another is fitting up 
in the court house) two stores, and about a dozen 
houses. One of them is the land office of the Holland 
company for the disposal of the three millions of acres 
purchased of the late Robert Morris. This is under 
the care of Joseph and Benjamin Ellicot, brothers to 
Andrew Ellicot of Lancaster, one of whose sons has a 
mill here in the town upon the Tonnewanta creek. 

All the Holland company's lands hereabouts (ninety- 
four miles one way by about as much in the broadest 
part the other way) have been accurately surveyed 
under the direction of the Ellicots, who have laid down 
connectedly on a large scale every tract, on one large 
map divided into three parts. Each part is attached 
to rollers and inclosed within a glass sash frame, so 
that by turning backward or forward the roller con- 
taining the survey required, you find in a minute's time 
any particular tract, its courses and distances, and a 
reference to the field notes containing the quality of 
the land and its timber. All the field books are half 
bound and numbered, and the notes appear to be judi- 
ciously taken; so as to enable the company to judge of 
the comparative value of each tract. The rollers appear 
to me to be about eight or ten feet long each, and the 
tracts very neatly and accurately laid down. The great 
convenience of this plan renders it well worthy of imi- 
tation in our land ofifice of Pennsylvania, where, to the 
great disgrace of the state, no connected map can be 
found of any one county in it. The Pennsylvania land 
ofifice has been in full operation now for a century ; and 
it is not saying a great deal too much, that the Ellicots, 
on the part of the Holland company, have done more 



16 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

accurate work, have finished and connected more sur- 
veys, and furnished less ground for uncertain titles, in- 
terfering- claims, and protracted law suits, in half a 
dozen years, than our land office can boast by the labour 
of a hundred. For, amid so much as hath been done, 
how little hath been done effectually ! That legislature 
that would order, and those officers that would com- 
plete a map of each county in Pennsylvania containing 
every tract laid down from official survey, would indeed 
deserve the blessings of their country. If the business 
of courts is to be diminished, this indeed would be an 
effectual way of doing it. 

The common selling price of land in the Holland 
purchase is from two to four dollars an acre, long credit. 
At first they took payment of the instalments in wheat, 
at present they demand cash. Mr. Joseph Ellicot, I 
hear, means to remove his office to BufTaloe, recently 
named Newamsterdam. The company has erected, at 
their own expense, at Batavia, a court house, a gaol, 
and a hotel, all under one roof. The outside is airy 
and neat, but the inside is neither elegantly nor com- 
modiously distributed for any of the purposes intend- 
ed. They make good beer in Batavia, at five dollars 
the thirty-three gallons ; chiefly from wheat. 

ID to Goss's, to feed: a poor place. Richardson's, 
a mile further, seems somewhat better. 

3 Carr's saw-mill on Murder Creek. The stone all 
chert. The limestone appears to decrease in quantity. 

5 To Van Deewinder's. a frame house, the only 
place between Batavia and BufTaloe where you can 
sleep, and bad enough it is. The road from Batavia 
hither is very full of stumps and swamp holes; three- 
fourths of it consists of log causeways. There is a log 
cabin about every mile or two. It is much the worst 
road I have met with from the state line hither: it is 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 17 

much the same as the road from Lycoming Creek past 
the block house and Peters's Camp to Tyoga, only the 
Holland company have taken somewhat more pains 
than the state of Pennsylvania. 

14 Sunday, May fourteenth, to Ransom's to break- 
fast : fried veal : the only fresh meat, except some beef 
at Canadarque, that I have seen since I left Williams- 
port. Nor has my horse had hay more than once since 
I left Reynolds's, the first stage from Williamsport. 
They attribute the want of it to a winter unusually 
protracted. 

8 To Landen's at BufTaloe, a village of about six- 
teen houses near the outlet of Lake Erie on the lake. 
From Van Deewinder's here nothing but chert along 
the road, but Landen says they have plenty of lime- 
stone upon the hills about three miles off. Landen's 
is but an indifferent tavern, though the best in the 
place. Buffaloe appears very well situated for business 
with Erie, Detroit, and the western part of upper Can- 
ada, but there are, as yet, no symptoms of industry. 
Landen tells me that the whole road round the lake to 
the town of Erie in Pennsylvania, ninety miles off. is 
well settled except about nine miles. I asked him 
where was the market for the produce of that part of 
the country? he replied, New Orleans, by the Cha- 
tangue Lake, there being but nine miles of land car- 
riage from Lake Erie to New Orleans, to wit, the 
Chatangue portage, which is true. But, in my opinion, 
the market will be Montreal, for there are not more 
than nine miles portage from Lake Erie to Montreal, 
to wit, at Queenstown, and, as I think, the navigation 
is not only very much shorter, but much easier. For 
when the lake salt is four dollars and fifty cents at 
Buffaloe, it sells at ten dollars at Pittsburgh ; hence, 
allowing a dollar per barrel profit, the carriage from 



18 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

Buffaloe to Pittsburgh will be five dollars by water. I 
believe land carriage is now al)oiit six dollars per hun- 
dred weight from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The ice 
was very thick in Lake Erie. 

3 To Millar's ferry along the bank of the lake. If 
it be no object to call at Buffaloe, there is a road turn- 
ing to the right, about two miles from Buffaloe, which 
leads directly to the ferry, and saves that distance. The 
stone that bounds the river here is a mass of black 
chert. I arrived about twelve o'clock, but the ice was 
so thick in the river Niagara that it was impassable till 
three. There were three wagons of emigrants waiting 
to cross to the British side from Shoharie in Newyork 
state, and Buffaloe in Northumberland county, Penn- 
sylvania ; they were chiefly Germans. They expected 
two hundred acres of land to cost them about fifty dol- 
lars; I understand the British government sells it at 
forty dollars per two hundred acres. The American 
emigrants to Canada generally complain, as I heard, of 
the violence of party politics in Newyork state and in 
Pennsylvania. The taxes in Canada are very light, but 
unequal. The crossing here is three-fourths of a mile 
over; price half a dollar for man and horse. They catch 
abundance of fish in the spring with a seine. The fam- 
ily were dining on pickerell and salmon trout, each 
about four pounds weight. 

15 To Chippeway: a house every three or four hun- 
dred yards all the way. An excellent road through 
good land. Chippeway contain's about ten houses. 
There are two good taverns, one kept by Stevens, the 
other by Fanning. Stevens being the nearest and the 
newest I stopt there. They are of equal repute. Each 
has a new part connected with the old building, and 
each has eight windows in front. The diningroom at 
Stevens's is twenty feet by thirty, carpetted. The at- 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 19 

tendance good, and the people civil. For a pint of tol- 
erable Teneriffe, a gill of rum, supper, breakfast, bed, 
and feed for my horse, I paid only thirteen shillings and 
six pence York money. There had been a handsome 
bridge over the Chippeway, but the middle part was 
broken down, and they now ferry across. On the op- 
posite side to the taverns, is a fort with a lieutenant's 
guard. The waters of Chippeway are dark coloured 
owing to its running for near thirty miles through a 
swamp. Mr. Ellicot told me that forty miles up the 
river there was gypsum in abundance, as he had been 
informed. He also mentioned two places near the 
mouth of Chippeway, in the river, whence issued bub- 
bles of inflammable air in considerable quantity, which 
might be fired by putting a small keg over the place 
with the bottom and top out, and one end immersed in 
the water. But my landlord, Stevens, could give me no 
information; nor would he take the trouble of giving 
me any particular directions as to the proper means 
of seeing the falls to the best advantage. "They are 
by the road side, you cannot miss them." 

Monday, May 15, to the falls of Niagara. Oppo- 
site Chippeway, the river seems to be about a mile and 
a half across. At the falls it is contracted and divided 
by an island into two main cataracts, the one near the 
British, the other near the American side. The road 
runs along the brow of a hill, and as you pass along at 
about two miles distance from Chippeway, you observe 
a wagon road descending to the right into some flats 
washed by the rapids of Niagara. The descent may 
be eighty or ninety feet. The flats are very narrow, but 
there are four or five buildings on them, a mill, a tan- 
nery, &c. At any of these you can procure a person to 
walk with you half a mile to the Table Rock, over a 
part of which the river rushes and makes the great fall. 



20 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

Ten dollars would make this a good horse road; at 
present you have to wind through the bushes very un- 
comfortably. The tavern-keepers at Chippeway ought 
to feel it their duty to make the walk as comfortable for 
the ladies as possible, and a trifle would make it so. 
When you get on the edge of this limestone flat called 
the Table Rock, you have before you a full and com- 
plete view of an amphitheatre of about half a mile* in 
circumference; comprehending close to your right two- 
thirds of the river Niagara, after rushing along in 
broken and foaming rapids, precipitating itself into a 
chasm beneath your feet, exactly one hundred and fifty 
feet deept. The falling water projects far enough to 
admit you to see a considerable way between the rock 
and the main sheet, and affords room enough for those 
who wish to descend, to go behind it. This is owing to 
a projecting ledge of the rock over which the water is 
precipitated. Opposite to you, at the distance of some- 
what less than a quarter of a mile, you see the river 
broken by a finely wooded island ; and the rest of this 
immense body of water, rushing- down into the farther 
part of the chasm below, on the American side. 



* So it appears to me, but I find the measurement more precisely 
given thus : Yards. 

The Horse-shoe falls have an extent of about . . 600 

The Island, . . -340 

The Small Fall beyond, on the American side, . . 8 

Another island, wooded to the edge of the precipice, . 20 

The Great Fall on the American side, 163 feet to the 
bottom, 350 

The circumference of the amphitheatre, from the Table 
Rock to the edge of the last mentioned fall, . . . 718 

I think the eye takes in at least half a mile. 

t This measurement I obtained from Mr. Jos. Ellicott, who told 
me he had taken much pains to ascertain the height from the Table 
Rock to the water's edge : and though he had made it one hundred 
and fifty feet on some trials, he had oftener made it one hundred and 
forty-nine feet six inches. It may, therefore, be called one hundred 
and fifty feet in round numbers. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 21 

The roaring and foaming of the rapids for near a 
mile in full view before the river arrives at the preci- 
pice; the green tint of the water, edged all the way 
down by curling folds of snow white foam ; the imme- 
diate chasm of boiling snow into which the river pours ; 
the mist that eternally hovers over the gulf below, and 
through which you see at intervals the turbulence of 
the bottom ; the trees of the island which divides the 
falls, and which seem to descend even below the edge 
of the precipice itself; the immense interminable mass 
of wood, which fills the whole of the surrounding coun- 
try, and borders to the very edge, every part of the 
watery prospect ; and the rapidity with which the green 
and white current below drives along" as if in haste to 
escape from the horrible chasm in which it had been 
ingulfed, form altogether a scene of grandeur and of 
beauty, unrivalled. I felt content that I had taken the 
journey. It was worth the trouble. 

After having sufficiently contemplated the scene be- 
fore me, I was satisfied that I could well dispense with 
my intended tour to the American side ; and also with 
the troublesome descent down an unsafe ladder half a 
mile ofif, and a walk of near a mile over the rough rocks 
at the bottom, to get at the view below, and behind the 
sheet of water. It appeared to me that every thing that 
was worth seeing, might be seen in safety and in com- 
fort from the Table Rock; but those who have more 
youth, more leisure, and more curiosity than I had may 
like to see all that is to be seen. It is unpardonable in 
the tavern-keepers at Chippeway, whose establishments 
are to be maintained by the concourse of travellers, 
who come expressly to see the falls, that they do not 
provide at least a sound and safe ladder, and expend 
twenty or thirty dollars in laying the stones at the bot- 
tom in such a manner as to enable the female part of 



22 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

the visitants to contemplate the scene under the Table 
Rock, if they wish so to do : at present it is an under- 
taking too arduous and fatiguing for the female sex. 

Those who wish to descend will be directed to a 
house about half a mile from the flats, where a ladder is 
kept for the purpose. When I was there nobody had 
gone down it since the preceding season, and I was ad- 
vised not to try ; an advice which I readily complied 
with. From the flats where the habitations are, you 
can ascend again into the main road, which I think is 
about eighty or ninety feet perpendicular above the 
edge of the water. This, therefore, is the descent 
which forms the rapids of the river, before the perpen- 
dicular fall of one hundred and fifty feet commences. 

When you have again got upon the high road by 
an ascent at the further end of the flats, you see about 
a hundred yards before you a house, with a field before 
it, fenced with a worm fence. It is now occupied by 
Charles Wilson, but has lately been sold to a Mr. Shan- 
non. Do not go so far as the house, but skirt round 
the fence, and in about one hundred and fifty or two 
hundred yards, you will see two or three knolls or prom- 
inences on which you may again take your stand, and 
have perhaps a still more complete view of the whole 
scenery than from the Table Rock. There is an oak 
tree on the best brow that I found for the purpose, on 
which about four feet high I cut a small blaze with my 
penknife. A small island in the river on the American 
side, in the midst of the falls on the American side; a 
mill seat in the distance ; and the beauty of the smaller 
fall which is made by that island, are objects worth no- 
ticing, as adding to the picturesque of the scenery, after 
you have sufficiently contemplated the grand whole. I 
gave the man who went with me from Hardie's, the 
tanner, half a dollar, with which he was well content. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 23 

He told me that land thereabout, unimproved, sold 
from three to four pounds sterling an acre, not far from 
the road, prime land. Hardie (a civil man) emigrated 
fifteen years ago from Lewistown, on the Juniata, be- 
fore Mifflin county was struck off from Cumberland. 
I mention this because I saw neither actual improve- 
ment in his situation, nor any means of improvement 
that might not have been made or obtained in the place 
he left. 

I intended originally to have gone from Buffaloe up 
the American side, to Schlosser's, but Landen at Buf- 
faloe informed me, the road was impassable. However, 
persons had been appointed to put it in order, and he 
was one, and about to set to work the next day, so that 
in a week or two it would be good. From Schlosser's 
northward to Lewistown there is a road, which forms 
the portage on the American side round the falls of 
seven miles, and thence from Lewistown to Niagara 
fort, a tolerable road of six miles. The river makes a 
bend toward the British side, so that the portage round 
the falls there is nine miles. The country on the Amer- 
ican side is good and will admit of thick settlement, 
but there are very few settlers from Niagara fort south- 
ward to Buffaloe. I cannot help thinking it would be 
well worth while to force a settlement along that fron- 
tier. 

4^ Inquire for John Thompson's house ; it is a mile 
and a half off the road. You go past one Bateman's 
on the left hand of the road, where you may get some 
person not merely to direct, but to go with you to 
Thompson's, which is a good stone house near the 
river. At the back of his house there is a stony field, 
full of cedars and white pine; go to the bank, and you 
see a place they call the whirlpool, which is a truly pic- 
turesque scene. The river seems at least one hundred 



24 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

and fifty feet below you; narrow, rapid, foaming; in its 
haste it drives against a bay which forms nearly a cul 
de sac ; this occasions an eddy, which they call the whirl- 
pool. On some days it is comparatively still ; on others 
it roars as loud as the great falls, and may be well heard 
at three and four miles distance. It is an object not to 
be passed on such a tour. Volney notices it, but I had 
not Volney with me, and I had forgotten it. I heard 
of it by chance, from my condutor at the Table Rock 
telling me of some one who lived near the whirlpool. 
A traveller must inquire for himself, he need not count 
upon being told of any thing worth seeing at Chippe- 
way. The man who conducted me was a German ; he 
had lived for some years thereabout as a farming 
servant, at six dollars per month and board, which I 
mention as an item of the price of labour. 

lYo Returned from Thompson's to (three miles) 
Queenstown. This is situated at the bottom of the hill ; 
that is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet 
below the road which leads from Lake Erie. This road 
has a gentle descent all the way from Lake Erie hither; 
but here it falls abruptly into a bottom thus much below 
its own level. It is highly probable that at some far 
remote period, the great falls were at this place ; for 
here is the commencement or the termination (call it 
which you will) of the higher level. The river here 
begins to widen, and admits of being ferryed ; but even 
the ferrying place has several eddies in it. 

Queenstown is a pleasant village of about sixteen or 
eighteen houses. I stopped at Banister's, a civil man, 
from Massachusetts. I got a pint of excellent port, 
which more majorum I find to be the fashionable wine 
among the Anglo Canadians. 

This is a place of trade, being the commencement of 
the portage round the falls. Banister pays about twelve 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 25 

shillings sterling a year for direct taxes of all kinds. 
The military and judiciary are paid by the crown. Judge 
Hamilton, who died lately, and had very large prop- 
erty, was assessed at no more. The imported goods 
come by way of Montreal. For tea they give one dol- 
lar and a half per pound, loaf sugar three shillings 
(Newyork currency). For my wine he charged me five 
shillings, but it was good. At Batavia I got Mr. Elli- 
cott to change my Pennsylvania notes, for the notes 
current in Newyork state ; but I found notes of no kind 
current in Canada. They trade for coin. They have no 
bank ; and they dislike our notes. No wonder. 

After dinner I rode (eight miles) to Newark, Fort 
St. George. The road excellent. The ride along the 
Niagara beautiful. The country well settled. In fact 
it may be regarded as a continued village from the 
ferry opposite the Black Rock for thirty-three or thirty- 
four miles down to Newark. I stopped at Emery's, a 
very good tavern. I wished to see Captain Lee who is 
collector at the American port of Niagara ; but no ferry 
is kept at either place. I hired a boat for the purpose. 
The boatmen here, as in England, use the two pegs in 
the side as points d'appui, and feather their oars. I 
was sorry to see the American town and fort of Niag- 
ara, so inferior in external appearance, at least, to the 
British town of Newark and Fort St. George. 

This being the extent of my proposed journey out- 
w^ard, I returned (eight miles) to Banister's at Queens- 
town, where I slept. By his persuasion, and it being 
also a new route. I determined to go by Lewistown, (a 
shabby American settlement opposite Queenstown.) 
I arose, therefore at five o'clock, and crossed the ferry 
to Lewistown. Hence (six miles) to Hopkins's. About 
three miles and a half from Lewistown, and about two 
miles to the right, is a settlement of Tuscaroras on a 



26 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

reserve of five miles square. I met several of them 
shooting in the woods. 

28 To Walsworth's. There are two or three baiting 
places between, but I have not noted them. By great 
industry I arrived here about three o'clock. I intended 
to have gone on to Batavia, eighteen miles further, for 
between Queenstown and Batavia, on this road, no one 
would willingly stop longer than was necessary; but my 
horse fell lame the last stage, probably from over-feed- 
ing before he was cool, and I was obliged to stay where 
I was. About two miles and a half from Walsworth's is 
the settlement of Seneca Indians, on the Tonnewanta 
reserve of twelve miles square. They are not more 
than about one hundred and fifty in number. 

13 Wednesday, May 17. Through the Indian re- 
serve ; of course no house all the way. Part of the road 
(five miles) over plains. From Lewistown hither all the 
stones is siliceous on the road ; though there is a ridge 
of limestone parallel with the road about three miles 
ofif. About the middle of the plains you meet with 
limestone again, which continues (intermixed) to Ba- 
tavia. Arrived at Durham's and fed my horse. 

5 To Batavia, where ends this abominable road, of 
which three-fourths consist of swamps and bogholes, 
to say nothing of stumps innumerable. When the canal 
shall be cut from the Forks of the Tonnewanta to the 
Forks of Mud Creek, through the Tonnewanta swamp, 
and the Indian claim to the reserves extinguished, then 
will this very fine tract of country be open for settlement 
and become, as it ought to be, the residence of civilized 
beings. I called on the Messrs. Ellicott's, who were so 
good as to send me to squire Eddy who lives in town- 
ship number nine of the seventh range ; and he made me 
a present of some Indian ornaments that he happened 
to have with him, dug up about three feet below the 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 27 

surface in one of his fields where they abound. Three 
small figures of baked earth, foxes' and dogs' heads ; 
a small human head of chalk, with a helmet on ; copper 
bells silvered, &c. He says they find spear heads of 
flint and stone daggers in great abundance, also some 
very large bones. Wanting to get on, I could not spend 
any time with him. 

12 To Ganson's, a very good house. The lameness 
of my horse compelled me to stop here. 

12 Thursday, i8th May, with great difficulty to the 
widow Barry's, over the Genesee, where I took three 
quarts of blood from my horse, and turned him out to 
pasture. 

Friday, 19th. Hired a horse of a Mr. Osmer to go 
to the mouth of the Genesee river, at fourteen shillings 
York currency, for two days. 

5 To Templin's an Englishman from Sussex. Came 
in the year 1795. I asked him how he liked the coun- 
try. He said he liked America very wiell for a poor 
man such as himself, but he would not stay here if he 
had money enough to spend. Col. Wardsworth and his 
brother have about two hundred and thirty head of 
cattle under this man's care, on twelve hundred acres 
of flats on this part of the river, which Templin says are 
worth thirty dollars an acre in their present state unim- 
proved. 

3 Scots at Allen Creek. 

ey. To Black Creek. 

y/i To the commencement of the rapids. I saw four 
deer at a small distance ; the only ones I have observed 
since I came out. Considering the flat character of the 
country, I wonder I have seen no more of them. 

About half a mile from the beginning of the rapids 
is a sulphur spring in the river near the west bank. The 
wild pidgeons resort to it much when the water is low. 



28 • A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

3 To the twenty feet falls. When Col. Wardrop and 
I were here in 1796, there was a mill, which is now fallen 
down and in perfect ruins ; but it appears to me the best 
site for a mill seat I ever saw. It commands the whole 
of the Genesee river; is perfectly secure from being 
washed away; and large boats might easily unload in 
the mill itself. As the falls begin here, every other situ- 
ation below requires a portage. The rapids do not ob- 
struct the navigation so far as this mill seat. 

^ Of a mile to Hartford's mill. This also from mis- 
management is out of business and going to decay. 
This is on the great falls of ninety-six feet, well seen 
from the road. The whole river tumbles down this 
height in one sheet. This is also a perfectly secure mill 
seat ; commanding any portion of the river that may be 
wanted. The mill, as it is, cost Hartford about one 
thousand dollars ; for this and two hundred acres of 
land adjoining, he was offered three thousand dollars 
cash, but asked three thousand five hundred, at which 
price no one has yet bought it. The only disadvantage 
is the necessity of somewhat better than half a mile of 
portage. 

2^ To Daly's, no longer a tavern as the man is 
going to leave the country. His daughter has been 
troubled wnth the ague ; the only person this time of my 
coming into the country whom I heard complain of this 
disorder. What the fall produces now I cannot say. I 
saw very few sick in the Genesee in the fall of 1796. The 
Genesee fever, which was an intermittent degenerating 
into typhus, was occasioned in 1793, 1794, and 1795, by 
the new settlers fixing themselves on their lowest and 
richest of land ; and clearing away the wood from about 
the moist and swampy ground. Had they built and 
settled on the open white-oak flats, and never gone into 
the bottom land, but for the mere purpose of clearing 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 29 

it, the country would not have produced that mahgnant 
disorder; but it appears to me now sufficiently healthy. 
A mile before you reach Daly's, you cross a wooden 
bridge thrown over a very deep hollow in which a small 
stream runs, that joins the lower falls. About fifty 
yards after you have passed this bridge, there is to the 
right, a path, not very plain indeed, but to be discov- 
ered by looking attentively. This path leads to a part 
of the bank, where young and active persons may de- 
scend for the purpose of viewing the lower falls. The 
two upper falls can be suf^ciently seen from the road. 
As this descent is rather rough and difihcult, I chose to 
go on to M'Dermot's or Daly's, where there is usually 
a boat kept. I gave a man half a dollar to row me from 
thence a mile up to the lower falls of Genesee. These 
falls are fifty-seven feet perpendicular; the whole river 
is here again precipitated. I calculated the breadth of 
the river here at about fifty rods wide : the general 
width of the river for some miles above the rapids seems 
about sixteen rod from bank to bank, when the river is 
moderately full. The dimensions above given would 
make the total fall of the river one hundred and seventy- 
three feet ; add about thirty or forty feet for the three 
miles of rapids which are by no means so precipitous as 
at Niagara and the total amount of fall will be about the 
same at both places. This strengthens the conjecture, 
that the stratum at Niagara falls is the same as at the 
falls of Genesee. I know of nothing to oppose to this, 
except that the Table Rock is perfect limestone, which 
abounds also in that part of the country; whereas I saw 
no symptom of this stone through the whole course of 
the Genesee, from Hartford to its mouth. It is prob- 
able, however, that the bed of the Genesee may be lime- 
stone, if it be true that lead ore is found there in various 
places. I saw no specimen of it. 



30 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

After the falls of Niagara, these are decidedly the 
grandest, as well as the most beautiful thing of the kind 
1 have seen, heard or read of. The excavated amphi- 
theater, allows the eye to take in a circumference of 
nearly half a mile, though the falls themselves are not 
more than the breadth I have assigned to the river. But 
the variegated colour of the strata, red and white, now 
contrasted, now softened into each other, intermixed 
with the green foliage of the cedar above, below, and 
interspersed here and there in the midst of the rock, 
afiford a contrast of object and of tint, so warm and 
cheerful, so rich and glowing, that I know of nothing 
to be compared with it. The eye takes in this delightful 
scene at the same time with the immense cascade that 
terminates the view. A view so intermingling the 
beautiful with the sublime, that it will well bear the con- 
templation of an amateur even after the falls of Niagara. 

The strata near the falls opposite the station for 
viewing them, below the cedars on the surface, seemed 
to me as follow, i. A gray loamy soil (warm tint) 
about six feet. 2. Whitish siliceo-argillaceous schistus 
in laminae of from nine to eighteen inches. This seems 
to occupy about twelve feet. 3. Reddish siliceo-argilla- 
ceous stone, approaching to a reddle, but not so soft. 
Of the softer kinds of this stone the inhabitants in the 
neighbourhood make a kind of red paint. This stratum 
appears to occupy about sixteen feet. 4. White argilla- 
ceous shale about eight feet. 5. Loose gravelly soil to 
the bottom, about thirty feet. This guess-work meas- 
urement allows about fifteen feet for the height of the 
bank to the surface of the river, but I think it is hardly 
so much. 

Tlie cedars are in masses, at the top and at the bot- 
tom, and here and there beautifully growing out of the 
middle strata, suspended by their roots. There v/ere 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 31 

half a dozen men and boys catching fish close to the 
falls. They had caught, in about two hours before T 
came there, three sturgeon, a few large pike, and about 
twenty perch-bass, a fish weighing generally about three 
quarters of a pound, and, in external appearance, very 
like a rock fish of the same size. The sturgeon are 
without scales. The largest was gutted and cleaned 
and its head cut off. I lifted it in that state, and agreed 
to the common conjecture that it weighed about sixty 
pounds. This was sold in my presence for six shillings, 
York money. The catch also in the spring, very com- 
monly, catfish from ten to twenty-five pounds weight,* 
which are esteemed as the best fish these waters fur- 
nish. They have here also a white fish, so called, but 
of its qualities I had no means of judging. The pick- 
erell, the salmon-trout, the perch-bass, the pike and the 
catfish, I know by experience to be very good. 

I have already observed that I met with no lime- 
stone on or immediately near to any part of the Genesee 
river. The falls furnish none. I examined the under- 
pinning of Hartford's mill, and the stone of his mill race. 
It is a hard, blue, siliceous grit : or rather the texture 
is minutely splintery. I heard that the rapids ran over 
limestone, but I saw no trace of it. They say that lead 
ore in small pieces is found all along the bed of the river 
from the head of the rapids to the falls. The people in 
the neighbourhood suspected there was silver, but none 
has been found ; although a right or patent for digging 
it in the Genesee river has been applied for by some per- 
son there more sanguine than the rest. 

4. To Latta's at the mouth of Genesee. When I was 
here before in 1796, there was only one house or cabin. 

* I have been told on good authority, of a catfish of ninetj^ pounds 
weight caught in the Alleghany, and brought to Pittsburg market. 



32 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

There is now another building- of the same description 
where Latta lives. A frame building is also putting up 
by a captain Eadus. 

This is a port of entry and collection for the United 
States. — Latta was the collector here for two or three 
years, but lately he has been displaced and is of course 
very angry at the administration. From his conversa- 
tion I collected that there are about fifteen vessels, 
partly open boats and partly schooners, employed in 
the transportation of American produce along lakes 
Ontario and Erie, principally salt from Oswego. These 
craft are from twenty-five to seventy tons. They take 
up at Oswego about 15000 barrels of salt annually (five 
bushels of 56 lbs. to the bushel) for the consumption of 
the American settlements on the south shores of the 
lakes. They export likewise flour, pork, and whiskey to 
the American forts of Niagara and Detroit. — But the 
principal trade is with Kingston on the British side of 
the lake, to which they can run in about sixteen or eigh- 
teen hours. In the year 1806 about 30,000 dollars 
worth of produce came down the Genesee river: in 
1807 about $70,000 worth ; and in 1808 notwithstanding 
the embargo, at least $100,000 worth of wheat, pork, 
whiskey, and potash was sent off from the mouth of the 
Genesee, and Gerundagut. chiefly to Kingston. As 
soon as the intercourse is opened, the Genesee river 
and Gerundagut will supply at least $200,000 worth of 
exports annually, and this of course will be on the con- 
tinual increase. Two large boats are now constantly 
employed in the trade from the mouth of Genesee. 
There is as yet no store there ; nor indeed do they seem 
much in want of one, considering the paucity of inhab- 
itants. The future market for the whole western dis- 
trict of Newyork will be Kingston. The British do not 
employ so many craft on the lakes as the Americans, 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 33 

but the amount of tonnage is about equal. The United 
States have a twenty g-un vessel completely equipped, 
called the Jefferson ; it lies at Osweg"o. Carriage of 
goods from Montreal to Erie on the British side, two 
dollars per cwt. Salt at the mouth of Genesee three 
dollars per barrel of five bushels. 56 lbs. to the bushel. 

29. Saturday May 20th. Returned from the mouth 
of the Genesee to the widow Berry's tavern. 

ID. Sunday 21. To Chenesee or Big Tree. Colonel 
W. Wadsworth who is unmarried, lives with his brother, 
Mr. James Wadsworth. The former is the farmer, the 
latter attends to the estate generally, and to his agency 
for part of governor Hornby's property. The particu- 
lars of this noble farm are briefly as follows : — The 
house (a double house of five windows in front, with 
good sized rooms) is placed on an eminence at the 
farther end of the village of Cheneseo which contains 
about a dozen other houses. There is a gentle descent 
of cleared land in front of the house for about three 
quarters of a mile to the edge of the flats. The flats 
are a mile and a quarter across. Of these, full in view 
from the windows of the house, colonel Wadsworth 
and his brother own 1700 acres, all cleared and laid 
down in timothy and clover. Beside these 1700 acres 
of flats, they have three or four hundred acres of cleared 
upland in front and around the house. 

They grow no grain but for the immediate con- 
sumption of the family; converting the whole of their 
land as far as possible into a grazing farm. Their pres- 
ent stock is twelve hundred sheep, with between six and 
seven hundred lambs ; of these lambs sixty-eight are half 
blood Merinos, and two hundred half bred Bakewell's. 
They purchased a full blooded Merino ram from chan- 
cellor Livingston, from the ram presented to him by 
M. Chaptal out of the emperor's flock at Rambouillet. 



34 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

To this ram they put seventy-six ewes. They have be- 
sides, about half a dozen rams and ewes of the half 
breed, and as many of Bakewell's breed. They are 
much in want of the large, long-wooled Lincolnshire 
ram, on account of the quantity of wool given by that 
breed. No doubt the flats of the Genesee would sup- 
port this species of sheep as well as the fens of Lin- 
colnshire ; and blankets are as necessary as superfine 
cloth or good wool hats ; but I cannot help thinking, the 
quality of merino wool, is of more consequence than 
the quantity of Lincolnshire. Nor is the merino breed 
deficient in quantity when well kept, which is very 
necessary during the winter. A half blooded merino 
ram purchased by Joseph Priestley, esquire, of Doctor 
Logan, gave 11^4 lb. of excellent wool, unwashed.* 
Stockings made of this wool, I can as easily distinguish 
from the best Germantown, by handling them, as I can 
distinguish silk velvet from cotton velvet. I should 
have no doubt of such land as I have been describing, 
being understocked at two sheep per acre. Beside these 
sheep, Messrs. Wadsworth keep on the same farm two 
hundred mules. The mules they import young from 
Connecticut, improve them here, and send them when 
full grown to the southern states, where they fetch 
from sixty to one hundred and twenty dollars a piece. 

They have also here a stud of forty horses : but they 
do not find ready sale for this kind of stock. They mean 
gradually to occupy the whole of their land as a sheep 
and dairy farm. 

On this tract they have three dairies, let out on 
shares. They furnish each tenant with a house and 
buildings and with forty cows. The tenant takes care 

* In Spain however the merino wool is so greasy that by the time 
it is thoroughly cleansed, it will lose 35 per cent, and upwards, 16 ann. 
agr. 225. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 35 

of the buildings, cuts the grass for hay, and retains half 
the butter and cheese. The other half goes to the land- 
lords who also retain all the calves, which are allowed 
to suck two months. They had when I was there about 
two ton of cheese yet on hand out of their share of the 
dairy, but it was of middling quality. In this country, 
cheese must be managed somewhat different from the 
English practice. If it be made wholly of unskimmed 
milk, it will be ripe in half the time here that it will in 
England. It is also apt to crack and become rotten. 
But if a pressure, more gradual, longer continued, and 
more heavy than usual, be applied, cheese may be thus 
made equal to any produced in England. I wonder the 
Schapzgar cheese so much in use in our cities, is not 
made at home. The colour and the flavour is certainly 
given by the common trefoil melilot (melilotus com- 
monis officinatis) a plentiful and unpleasant weed in 
England. 

This is all the stock these gentlemen have on the 
home farm. Lower down on the Genesee river below 
the bridge, under the care of Tamplin as I observed 
before they have about two hundred and thirty head 
of horned cattle. These with the produce of their dairy 
farm, allow them very conveniently to sell about one 
hundred head of horned cattle yearly. They complain 
of want of capital to stock the land fully. There is full 
sale at half a doHar per pound for all the common wool. 
Hatters give from a dollar to two dollars for merino 
wool. 

Mr. James Wadsworth has arranged a very well 
chosen library of about six hundred volumes of the 
best modern books; doubtless the best room in this 
neat and well furnished house. — The estal)lishment in 
all its parts seems to give a full and a favourable picture 



36 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

of that truly respectable character, an active, intelligent, 
industrious gentleman farmer. 

They have no land of their own on the flats for sale. 
What they possess the family mean to retain. Mr. 
Wadsworth informed me, that the flats on Connecticut 
river, certainly not superior to the Genesee flats, (for 
what land can be superior?) are frequently let out for 
hemp* at twenty and thirty dollars an acre for the sea- 
son; and even then they are manured at ten load per 
acre. This may be the case no doubt, but it must arise 
from that accuracy of cultivation which can only be 
exerted on a small scale. 

The adjoining township on the river, above, con- 
taining twenty-five thousand acres was purchased by 
col. Fitzhugh, col. Rochester and Mr. Caryll of Balti- 
more, from capt. Williamson, but it remains yet unim- 
proved. I went to meeting with the family in the after- 
noon and remained with them that evening. 

lo. Monday 22. Returned to Berry's. N. B. There 
is a circulating library at Hartford : thirty subscribers 
at five dollars originally, and twenty-five cents each an- 
nually. The day very rainy; but I got (wet through) 
as far as 

14. Eccleston's a very indifferent house. 

10. Tuesday, May 23. To Canandaigua, wet through 
again : my horse very lame. The day cold, windy and 
rainy. Staid at Taylor's. 



* I wonder hemp is not more cultivated in this country considering 
how very necessary, and how very profitable a crop it is. Whenever 
it shall be cultivated as it ought to be, the French process, of boiling 
it for two hours in a close copper vessel, with a small quantity of soft 
soap in the water, will most assuredly be substituted for water rot- 
ting, b}' those who know how to attend to their own interest. The 
fibres of the bark are held together by a gum resin ; two ounces of 
the bark yielded to spirits of wine, forty eight grains of resinous ex- 
tract, and to water 85 grains of gummous extract. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 37 

1 8. Wednesday 24. To judg'e Potter's by the post 
road along the Canandaigua to the Crooked Lake. The 
road on the other side of the Crooked Lake by which I 
came from Bath to Snell's town, was not a good one : 
this is a worse. Mrs. Potter was so good as to provide 
me dinner. Old Mr. Potter was stirring about, cheer- 
ful, and with all his faculties good at the age of eighty- 
six. The house is one of the most respectable in ap- 
pearance both within and without of any I have seen 
on this journey. Mrs. Potter recommended me to 
Brown's, four miles off. She told me Jemima Wilkin- 
son lived not more than a mile from Brown's, who was 
generally glad to see strangers. I went to Brown's, 
one of those uncomfortable half public half private 
houses, where you are received as if it were a great 
favour done to you. — Brown himself was not at home 
at first, but his wife was cold, careless, dirty, vulgar and 
disobliging. I found however good hay for my horse. 
I walked toward Jemima Wilkinson's, who lives at the 
end of a long descending lane. At the top of the lane, 
I met a woman and inquired civilly where about Jemima 
Wilkinson's house was. She replied she knew no such 
person ; "the friend" lived a little piece below. I went to 
her house, nearly at the foot of a mountain. Externally 
it is a mean looking frame building; but clean and com- 
fortable within. I sent up my name by a Miss Willan 
or Millan, aged about thirty or thirty-two, who with her 
sister six years younger, has long lived with the 
"Friend." They seemed sensible and well behaved. In 
about half an hour the friend herself made her appear- 
ance : a corpulent woman, masculine featured, her hair 
(nearly gray) combed back, her age fifty-nine, dressed 
in a kind of minister's gown or cassock of dark coloured 
jean, neither her tone of voice nor manner bespoke 
much intercourse with the world, and nothing with the 



38 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

polite part of it. I inquired how long she had lived 
there, what was the religious description and extent of 
the society over which she presided, &c. To all this she 
readily answered. She said she had no more connexion 
with the quakers, than with other denominations; her 
society consisted of persons of almost all persuasions; 
that she stood with them in the character of universal 
friend. She had no particular place of worship, but 
generally preached every seventh and every first day at 
home; occasionally too, but not regularly, at other 
houses of appointed meeting. She had family prayer at 
home every evening, at which, any who chose might 
attend. She said her doctrine was no other than what 
was contained in the scriptures, and she allowed the 
necessity of being called by the Spirit of God from sin 
to holiness. I suggested that this was the old Cal- 
vinistic doctrine of the 17th article of the church of 
England, .and the modern doctrine of the methodists, 
particularly of the Calvinistic denomination : and that 
it occasioned some doubt whether being called or not 
depended on any goodness of disposition or rectitude 
of conduct of the man himself. She said these were 
deep subjects which she should be glad to discuss with 
me by and by; but that much harm had been done by 
atheistical writers such as Dr. Priestley and Thomas 
Paine. I endeavoured to explain to her, that Paine 
was not an atheist but a deist; and that Dr. Priestley 
was a strenuous defender of Christianity, and one of 
the sect of Christians, who were called Socinians or 
Unitarians; but who rested their faith upon the scrip- 
tures according to the sense it seemed to bear to them, 
full as much as she did. She pressed me to spend the 
evening at her house which I declined. Her conversa- 
tion at length became unpleasantly parenetic and didac- 
tic, abounding with scripture phraseology applied some- 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 39 

what at random, and strongly savouring of what 
seemed to me affected mysticism. I rose, and took my 
leave. 

Her people are not numerous, but they seem much 
attached. In the year 1794 they bought a township 
on the Seneca Lake, where they made what was called 
the "Friend's" settlement. Much of this she claims as 
her own ; though the part of it she claims, as well as all 
bequests made to her, she will not consent to hold or to 
be made under any other denomination of herself, than 
"The universal Friend." But as some doubts have 
been lately made, whether the law is likely to know 
any such person, they are now made in all cases to the 
elder miss Willan or Millan, who also transacts her 
temporal concerns. 

Brown, who was many years at law with her, fur- 
nished me with some of the above particulars. He says 
she is an ambitious, troublesome and litigious, but a 
good moral woman in all her conduct. She was orig- 
inally a quaker, born in Connecticut ; but aspiring to 
more power, and becoming more forward than the 
meeting approved, she pretended at one time to faint, 
to have died, and to have risen again with a commis- 
sion from God to preach as the universal friend of man- 
kind. She is evidently a woman of strong features, 
mental and bodily; fanatically religious and ambitious. 
By no means well read, or well informed, or of manners 
exhibiting either the exterior of politeness, or knowl- 
edge of the world. On the other hand there is good 
reason to believe that she is sincerely religious ; her 
moral conduct is irreproachable, and she is remarked 
as being habitually civil and hospitable toward stran- 
gers. The district over which she presides is called 
Jerusalem; Snell's town, or Pen Yang, at the outlet of 
the Crooked Lake, formerly belonged to her commu- 



40 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

nity; but that filling up with persons not of her per- 
suasion, she quitted that place, as she had done the 
friend's settlement near Hopetown on the Geneva or 
Seneca Lake. 

27. Thursday, May 25. From Brown's to Bath 
along- a rough dreary road. 

7. Friday 26. To judge Falkner's at Mud Creek. 

12. To Irwin's the Painted Post. 

4. To Bonham's near the Canisteo or Canistier. 

8. To judge Linby's, whose house and farm viewed 
out of his windows, are Big Tree in miniature. 

Much hellebore in the ground, hence to the next 
stage : after that much wild garlic. 

Syi. Saturday 27. To widow Berry's on the Tioga. 

19. To Bloss's at Peters's camp. Rain. Exam- 
ined again the specimens of his coal and iron ore : but 
the latter is not rich, and the vein of coal is not more 
as yet than sixteen inches thick. 

10^. To Higley's at the Block House. The road 
extremely wet and difficult. Sunday, May 28th. 

15. To Reynolds's. Much thunder, lightning and 
heavy rain, attended with a most violent gust of wind, 
so that I was compelled to stay all night. 

13. Monday, 29th May. To Williamsport, whence 
I set out. The wind had thrown down a very great 
number of trees. I counted thirty across the road, with- 
in about five miles from Reynold's. I was detained till 
some of them were cut through. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 



41 



Table of stages from Philadelphia to the Falls of Niagara. 



miles 



From Philadelphia to Read- 
ing 

Reading to Sunbury 

Sunbury to Williamsport 

To Reynold's 

To Higley's at the Block 
House 

To Bloss's at Peter's camp 

To Jenning's 

To widow Berry's on Tioga 

To Judge Linby's 

To Irwin's the Painted Post 

To Dr. Falkner's Mud Creek 

To Wm. Spring's at Bath 

To Tuples's 

To Rice's at Pen Yang 

To Powell's at Geneva 

To Powell's at the Sulph. 
Springs 

To Taylor's at Canandaigua 

To Gen. Hall's 



miles 





Brought forward 


35ii 


56 


To Mrs. Berry's at Hartford 


12 


74 


To major Smith's 


4* 


44 


To Marvin's 


12 


14 


To Key's at Batavia 


8 




To Vandeewinder's 


18 


15 


To Ransom's 


14 


10 


To Landin's at Buffaloe 


8 


9 


To Black Rock 


3 


10 
8 


To Chippeway 


15 


To Niagara falls 


2 


12 


To the Whirlpool 


6 


12 

6 

20 


Back to the road 


li 


To Queenstown 


3* 


12 


To Newark on lake Ontario 


8 


IS 


From Philadelphia to New- 




12^ 


ark 


467 


10 


If the falls of Genesee be 




12 


taken in the rout it will add 


60 



3515 



Total 



527 



Roads. From Reynolds's on the Lycoming creek, 
fourteen miles beyond Williamsport to judge Linby's, at 
the junction of the Cawaneska and the Tyoga, fifty-four 
miles, the road is very bad. It seems like a state pro- 
hibition to emigration, and, what is worse, to the en- 
trance of any produce from Newyork state into Penn- 
sylvania. Much of the cattle that comes to Philadel- 
phia market is brought from the Genesee country along 
this most abominable road. A carriage cannot travel 
upon it above a mile and a half an hour; and it requires 
great judgment and incessant caution to drive it at all. 

On entering New York state, the road becomes very 
much improved. There are indeed two portions of it 
that are bad, viz. from Bath to Geneva, and from Ba- 
tavia to Vandeewinder's : but no part of this is so ex- 
ecrable as the major part of the way from Reynolds's 



42 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

to Peters's camp. All the rest of the road over which 
I travelled in Newyork state, (about one hundred and 
fifty miles) is an excellent carriage road. To be sure, 
siliceous grit, chert, flint and limestone, are very de- 
sirable materials for the purpose. The contrast be- 
tween the roads made, and projected to be made, in the 
states of Newyork and Pennsylvania is still stronger, 
as may be seen by M'Alpin's map of the turnpike roads 
of Newyork state. But enough is not done even there. 
Whenever the state road along the pebble ridge that 
runs parallel to lake Ontario at the distance of about 
five or six miles from it, shall be completed, there will 
be an excellent conveyance from Albany to Niagara. I 
expect this will be done about the year 1812.' From 
Lewistown to Batavia the road is very bad, but the pub- 
lic do not want it.' The Holland Company ought to 
make it for their own interest. It passes through ex- 
cellent land. 

The canal from Tonewanta to Mud creek, will 
probably be made, as there is a report of the legislature 
in its favour. This will open the navigation between 
the river Niagara and Albany, and drain all the country 
afi^ected by the Tonewanta swamp. 

The Newyork turnpikes, like those of Newengland, 
are made merely by clearing out the stumps, ditching 
on each side the road, and elevating it in the middle by 
means of the dirt thrown out of the ditches. This en- 
ables the people to complete so many more of them 
than there are in Pennsylvania; for neither the same 
time nor the same capital is required for the purpose in 
that state as with us. Our roads are far too expensive ; 
they are extravagant ; they require much capital, and 
pay so little interest, that the exertions of the people 
are paralyzed. Our roads ought to be made as much 
as possible on the principle of the Newyork roads : m 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 43 

which case the expense of making them, would not ex- 
ceed twelve hundred dollars a mile upon a high average, 
instead of eight thousand, as the Lancaster turnpike 
cost. It is true, such a road would not long stand our 
five horse wagons. Nor will any road. These machines 
threaten absolute destruction to the whole turnpike 
system, especially running as they do upon narrow 
wheels. In England a four horse wagon must have six 
inch wheels. By the general turnpike act, it is directed 
that no compensation shall be taken for narrow wheels. 
In that country they are alive to the evil, and are upon 
their guard against it ; we ought to be so too, or we 
shall have to renounce the only beneficial and the only 
fair system on which roads can be made. It is of in- 
finite importance to the country that it should succeed, 
that it should be permanent, and therefore that it should 
be moderately productive : but it cannot be so while 
five and six horse teams grind to the very botttom of 
the road by their weight however hard the materials, 
no toll they pay is a compensation for this. Through- 
out Newengland and Newyork states, wagons with 
more than three horses are, I believe, almost un- 
known. Generally they are two horse wagons. Hence v 
the roads want little repair : hence they are productive : 
hence they are numerous, and the remotest township 
is brought comparatively near to the capital. 

Nor is there a fact in the whole range of economics 
better established than that four horses in four separate 
carts, will haul a greater weight than six horses in a 
wagon. The induction of particulars to establish this 
in the Annals of Agriculture XIII. 22, 43, 404. XXIV. 
18. XXVII 338. XXIX. 142 is complete: and the 
practice is extending in England to such a degree as to 
threaten the annihilation of heavy wagons. I most 
heartily wish the papers I have just referred to, were 



44 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

published together, and universally read. The author- 
ities are of the very first rate, in point of rank, talents, 
and knowledge. 

After all, the turnpike system, though as yet in its 
infancy here, is of incalculable benefit to the public. 
From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh is three hundred miles, 
of which a very small portion is turnpike, the expense 
of carriage is six dollars per cwt. or 45s. 

From Philadelphia to Northumberland is one hun- 
dred and thirty-two miles : the expense of bringing 
goods that distance is los per cwt. for at least one- 
third is turnpiked. The usual moderate load is 35 cwt. 

From Philadelphia to Columbia, seventy-six miles, 
the carriage is 3s. 3d. per cwt. and the load is 26 and 27 
barrels of flour or about 2^ ton; so that the time and 
the expense are very considerably lessened by turn- 
pikes, and the loads carried by the same power are in- 
creased. The price of carriage over the most travelled 
road in the state, but rough and not turnpiked is 15s. 
per one hundred miles : over a road about ^ turnpiked 
7s: over a good turnpike road 4s 23^d. These facts 
speak for themselves. 

Soil. From the Newyork line on the Cawaneska, 
to Geneva and Canandaigua, all the land not immedi- 
ately mountainous is tillable, but by no means of first 
rate quality. Certainly not equal to Lancaster county 
for instance. About Canandaigua, and thence to the 
Genesee river it becomes better. For fifty or sixty 
miles from the mouth of Genesee up the river, a great 
proportion of the land, adjoining the river, is of the 
very first quality the earth can produce. The flats of 
Big Tree, Williamsburgh, those opposite Squaque hill, 
&c. &c. consist of mould 15 feet deep, extremely rich, 
and a mile across in many places. I remember riding 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 45 



along the Indian path throug-h the flats of Big Tree in 
1796, and pulhng up two blades of wild grass as I rode 
along (the whole flats being then thickly covered with 
it). On my return home I measured them, and one 
was eight feet four inches, the other nine feet two inches 
high. 

From Genesee river within five miles of Batavia the 
land is good. From Batavia, or ten miles to the east of 
it, to lake Erie, to lake Ontario and to Niagara is 
the Flanders of this part of America. One continued 
flat country with no mountain and hardly a hill for 50 
miles square, all excellent land. It must be the grazing 
country of America, particularly for sheep. For there 
are no mountains or rising grounds from the Genesee 
river to the Lakes in which any vermin, destructive of 
sheep, can harbour : while from the Lakes of Canan- 
daigua and Geneva to the Pennsylvania line, particular- 
ly from Bath downwards; the hills are full of wolves, 
foxes, panthers, wild cats and racoons. — Deer are great 
nuisances. They tempt wolves to remain in a country. 
In this fifty miles square, I have not seen or heard of 
one acre of untillable land : and by far the greater part is 
not only tillable, but very good. I am inclined from 
information to think the same of the land fifty miles 
south of Ontario, from Geneva westward, to the Black 
river, the German flats, and perhaps even to Schenec- 
tady eastward. I have heard of no body of land of equal 
value on the American continent ; and it is yet cheap. 
But there are many parts of this flat country, where 
water is scarce in summer time, and not good. I re- 
member being at col. Wadsworth's in 1796, when they 
were digging a well at the back of the house : I took 
some of the stones suspecting them to be of the nature 
of stone coal, but they were merely impregnated with 



46 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

mineral bitumen in such quantity as to blaze in the fire. 
The water however at present is well tasted. 

Buildings. These are almost all frame. Geneva and 
Canandaigua are beautiful towns : frame houses paint- 
ed. Nothing in Pennsylvania so light and so elegant 
externally. I saw in Bloomfield, two brick houses, a 
brick store, and a brick meeting house. I hardly recol- 
lect any other brick or stone building from Williams- 
port in Pennsylvania, to Buffaloe on lake Erie : or in- 
deed to Niagara. Yet from the outlet of the Crooked 
lake at Snell'stown, limestone is to be found every 
where along the rout : and if the houses are painted as 
often as they ought to be, even for the mere purpose of 
preservation, frames will be found dearer in the end 
than either brick or stone. But some mode must be 
found of disposing of the timber; and the Newengland 
steady habits, have contributed to introduce frame 
buildings in Newyork state. Handsome as these frames 
are externally, when well painted, few are finished with- 
in side. As they accumulate property, this will be rem- 
edied. 

Inhabitants. There are few Pennsylvanians, few 
Germans, few English, few Irish, in this part of the 
country. There are some emigrants from Newjersey; 
but the settlers seem to come chiefly from the eastern 
states, and from the settled part of Newyork state. 
They are a civil people, decent in their manners ; but 
it is a formal, comfortless, civility, not like English, 
Irish, or Pennsylvanian. You are not at home in their 
taverns. All the innkeepers, though reasonably atten- 
tive, seem too much on an equality with their 
guests. There is no attention paid to the choice or 
taste of their guests either in eating or drinking. The 
month of May to be sure is a scarce time for fresh pro- 
visions in every part of the back country. Hence it was 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 47 



that I eat fresh meat but four times from the sixth to the 
twenty-ninth of May. I found wine once at Bath, owing 
to the tavernkeeper being- a Pennsylvanian ; Imt it was 
not good. I drank no more till I came to Chippeway 
on the British side. You meet sometimes with brandy 
of inferior quality; and sometimes with gin, whiskey is 
to be found everywhere : but the common tavern bev- 
erage is rum. The bottle is set before you, and you 
take what you please. The charges at the better taverns 
are two and six pence per meal, and one shilling, for 
your bed. 

Painted floor cloths seem more plentiful than car- 
pets, particularly at Bloomfield. 

I have mentioned a book society at Hartford. There 
is another in Bloomfield (that is not in the town, but 
township of Bloomfield). I doubt much whether taste 
or morals be much improved by the general style of 
reading prevalent in most parts of the back country 
that I have seen. The frequent intermixture of re- 
ligion and novels, does not promote either. The As- 
sembly's Catechism and Watt's plasms, I have more 
than once seen on the same shelf with Lewis's Monk and 
Kotzebue's stupid plays. Indeed throughout America, 
men and women, boys and girls, read too much of de- 
votional bigotry as a matter of reluctant duty, and then 
wash down the bitter potion, with the intoxicating 
draught of sentimental love stories and tales of wonder. 
I believe however that book societies, being managed 
by a committee, whose selections are observed and re- 
marked on, will have a tendency to counteract the de- 
praved taste, which has crept into so many families of 
the back country. 

These people (except in county towns) seem to have 
little propensity to gather in towns and villages. The 
houses from Geneva to Batavia, may be reckoned at 



48 A RIDE TO NIAGARA 

one to every quarter of a mile, for the average of each 
side of the road. But there is no such thing as a town 
or village in the English or Pennsylvanian sense of the 
word. I regard this as a misfortune. Half the benefits 
arising from civilized society are owing to towns. Dr. 
Price and a much superior man, the count de Mirabeau 
in his monarchic Prussianne, have talked a great deal of 
nonsense on this subject. Granting that the mortality 
is greater in large towns than in the country, it does not 
lessen the population, for the demand is increased and 
more people are raised : it is like Irish and Scotch emi- 
gration : it promotes the manufacture of human beings 
by increasing the demand for them. But suppose peo- 
ple do die sooner upon the average in large towns; if 
they do not live longer by the month or year, they live 
more : they live longer by the real calculation of life. 
There is more intercourse in towns than in the country, 
and therefore more pleasure, intellectual and sensual : 
and therefore also more mind, more energy, more im- 
provement, more character, because more stimulus. All 
the resources of mind and body, are brought out, and 

if the man be in some instances a he is in many 

a much better and more useful member of society. 

The inelegant and unwholesome practice of feeding 
on salt provisions the whole year, prevails in such a state 
of society, because there are no assemblages of people 
contiguous to each other, to maintain a butcher. The 
taverns have no wine because social parties are only to 
be found in congregations of people : and private fam- 
ilies content themselves with spirituous beverage for 
the same reason. Hence also, the wholesome nourish- 
ing malt liquor, is almost unknown in such a country. 
Elegance and neatness in private dwellings will always 
be scarce articles there comparatively, for we are care- 
less when we have nobody's eyes to please but our own. 



A RIDE TO NIAGARA 49 

The same remark may l)e extended even to personal 
cleanliness. From the same cause, education also is dear 
and defective. In fact a country cannot be half civil- 
ized that does not abound in towns. If they are the 

sources of vice and disease, they are so of virtues and of 
knowledge of all kinds: and they are the chief instru- 
ments of human improvement and comfort, and the 
nurse of all our social pleasures. 

I cannot help thinking therefore that the mode of 
settlement in Newengland, and the western district of 
Newyork, radically wrong in a social point of view, for 
many other reasons also of minor consideration to 
those I have mentioned. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I Ml I ii II III! I {{ 



014 1073990 *^ 



